The newish website Maplight won some recognition today from Netsquared. Netsquared's one of those techno social change-o thinktanky sites that does something progressive, but we can't tell what. Fortunately, Maplight's purpose is a bit more concrete. They correlate politicians' donations and votes, showing where someone might be motivated more by money than by duty to the citizens.

Alas, there's nothing too damning that we could find on our local pols. Leland Yee got a lot of money from firefighters and voted in their interests 97% of the time. But was it the money that made him do it? Or was it because SF voters just tend to like firefighters? Same for Jackie Speier, who got lots of money from and usually sided with civil servants; and Mark Leno, who has a close relationship with physicians.

Thomas Oller's the only one who sided against all his donors, which proves -- what, exactly? He's ornery?

Yay, Tapioca Ed! We're counting down the days until he's scheduled to get back! (5 days to go.)

Today's Chronicle runs a story about how Ed Jew's travails have been covered in the Chinese-language local media. Man, we are sorry we didn't study the characters harder in our Mandarin Chinese classes (which -- fame whore alert!! -- we took with a certain elected Newsom city official) because their coverage sounds awesome.

The World Journal reports that the owners of the Good Neighbor Cafe are buying papers every day because of the story: "[It is just like watching a serial soap opera. There is a twist and new development every day." Yes it is! They also said, "Unlike other elected officials, we can always see [Ed Jew] on Irving Street after he was elected." They saw Tapioca Ed in the Sunset? They'd be the only ones.

Another paper, the Ming Pao, says Jew has told them he will not resign, and yet another paper, the Sing Tao, says that Jew's having a grand time in Guangdong visiting his ancestral village. Is he going to try and establish residency in that village next?

Finally, Quickly owners have reported that they're feeling ostracized in the community now and that people are calling them "sinners" for reporting Tapioca Ed's alleged shakedown. Aww, Quickly! We're totally picking up some popcorn chicken and an almond snow for lunch today.

Picture by Chris Hardy, from an earlier Chron article about the local Chinese media.

Gavin Newsom, why won't you just do a Question Time before the Board of Supervisors? Was it not enough to force all those citizens into renting chicken suits and drag all those innocent bloggers out at obscenely early hours on the weekends (read: 10 a.m.), just because you've unilaterally decided you don't like to take unscripted questions? Was it really worth it? Now just look what you've made Question Time originator Chris Daly do!

That's right: if Mohammed won't come to the mountain, the mountain will come to Mohammad -- Supervisor Chris Daly's gone and started the process of putting a new proposition on the ballot for the next election, requiring Gavin Newsom appear for Question Time as a matter of law. Dang! Why not just go ahead and add something requiring Gavin to appear in a chicken suit too, while we're at it?

It's not quite on the ballot yet, though: Daly needs six supervisors to sign off on the measure, and then the voters would have to approve it by a majority at the November election, before the marshals drag Gavin in, kicking and screaming like a toddler. If Gavin even wins reelection, that is. (Ha! He's totally going to win reelection -- even though the Usual Suspects futures market is now showing Tony Hall in the lead gaining (thanks for the clarification, David! We're still new to this futures game.)

Picture by Jim Herd of the Dalys Chris and Jack from the Harvey Milk dinner the other night.

More Carole Migden driving news! The Sacramento Bee (which, we'll admit, we were only perusing to see if there were some more pictures of the whales) has found a woman who's still angry about the time Carole Migden totaled her car back in 1996 (Migden's first year in the State Assembly, and a year before Migden was diagnosed with leukemia). "It's really odd at my age that I just can't get over it," the woman said.

The woman, Teresa Latham, is a tax technician at the State Board of Equalization, and had just paid off her 1990 Dodge Spirit seven months earlier when Migden ran a stop sign by the State Capitol and totaled her car. Latham said that Migden didn't seem concerned at all about the situation, even though the accident caused Latham's air bags to go off. Latham got fair compensation for the car and for her medical injuries, but is still peeved that Migden didn't seem particularly sorry about the event.

Latham ran into Migden a few years later at the Board of Equalization, and Migden told her to smile because it was Friday. Latham responded, "I'd rather you not talk to me. You totaled my car." Oh, we kind of feel bad for Carole Migden now!

Picture of Carole Migden with Bill Clinton.

There's a profile of Phil Ginsburg, the new mayoral chief of staff, in today's Chron. Basically, it's a hard job, Ginsburg took a $75K paycut when he took it, and he was nonplussed when, about one week in, he got stuck dealing with the Ruby Rippey-Tourk/rehab circus. Also, Ginsburg is really into org charts.

Interestingly, though, pretty much everyone admits (or at least doesn't deny) that Gavin is difficult to work with, and praise Ginsburg for "not drinking the Kool-Aid" for the administration. Supervisor Bevan Dufty was brave enough to go on the record and say that when he heard Ginsburg had accepted the position, he called Ginsburg and said, "You didn't ask me, but I would have told you not to take the job." Guess Dufty and Newsom are still fighting, then?

Newsom, for his part, says he's glad he has a chief of staff that has little political experience, saying, "I don't want a political strategist. I want a manager. I'll ... sort of come up with the audacious ideas." We're looking forward to seeing the audacious ideas that Newsom sort of comes up with next!

Picture by Kim Komenich for the Chron.

You know, maybe Tapioca Ed wouldn't have problems with fire if he had running water. Bobagate heats up -- literally!

Matier and Ross report today on some issues regarding yet another house that Ed Jew owns. Ed Jew owns so many houses he didn't even report this one to the Board of Supes! (By the way, who owns this much property in San Francisco? If he were playing Monopoly, Ed could put up a little red hotel.)

Anyways, this latest Ed Jew house is in Laurel Heights. The last tenant in the house killed himself with an OD of muscle relaxants in September 2005. Ed tried to sell it a few months later for $1.19 million, but it didn't move. About two or three months later, in February 2006, someone set it on fire -- apparently an arsonist walked in, dumped gasoline in the living room and den, and lit a match.

Jew then got permits to renovate the house -- but apparently, a homeless guy moved into the portapotty the contractors installed outside, and then one day the portapotty caught on fire too. Neighbors are now convinced the house is haunted.

The Chron is running a bio of Ed Jew today too. He owns about $5 million in property and bought his first piece of land when he was 21. (Only $5 million with 13 houses in San Francisco? That doesn't sound right.)

Picture of Ed Jew's burned out property from the Chron, who got it from Socketsite.com.

Even when Tapioca Ed's out of the country, the news keeps popping up! Here's today's latest Bobagate news.

--So you know what that $40,000 would've bought the Quicklys? A letter from Ed Jew to the Planning Commission to get a business permit, the Examiner says. The Quicklys' rival bubble tea shop Wonderful got a letter from Tapioca Ed and a permit shortly afterwards -- and adding insult to injury, Wonderful didn't have to pony up cash for it either. (The Wonderful building is owned by a friend of Ed's who sits on the SF Redevelopment Agency.) The supervisors contacted by the Examiner all seemed pretty appalled: Aaron Peskin referred to the practice as a "no-no," and Sean Elsbernd said in general, he doesn't do it because it's a conflict of interest when the commission's recommendation comes up to the Board for approval. Chris Daly was, of course, busy burying interns in his family's backyard.

--Speaking of permits and FBI raids, the Chron (running about a day behind the Ex) reports that the pot club in Ed Jew's building is scrambling to get a med marijuana dispensary permit of its own, and that the club was one of the ones raided in 2005 for selling to people without valid medical cards. Jew got a letter from the city saying they needed to get the permits or they'd shut the club down, but there's no evidence he ever complied, or that the city ever followed through. Did he pay himself the $40,000 to go away?

--And the San Mateo Times leaps to defend their hometown boy, finding neighbors in Burlingame who say they see Tapioca Ed around the house all the time. One neighbor said she thought it was weird that he was running for office in San Francisco, but figured, "It's San Francisco. Who knows what kind of laws they have?"

--Oh, and in good news for Jew, the city attorney's given him an extension of time to prove where he lives. He's now got until June 8. He's scheduled to get back into town on June 4. Hey, Ed, wanna pay us $40,000 to run over to your place in the Sunset and turn on all the taps?

Well, it's about time! As the progressives run around in a circle waving their hands around in terror for another week or two until June 2, the more right-leaning folks have decisively made their move! Former supervisor and sometimes lounge singer Tony Hall has filed his paperwork to run for mayor.

Tony Hall's been famously irritated with Gavin Newsom ever since Newsom dumped him off at the Treasure Island Development Association to give his Supervisor's seat away to Sean Elsbernd and the Office of Emergency Services office to Annemarie Conroy, and then had him fired after the two of them got in a fight over Newsom's lack of commitment to the island and Newsom's accusations of Hall's financial improprieties. Hey Tony, it could've been worse: Gavin might have tried to make a play on your wife!

In the aftermath of that exploded friendship, Tony Hall demanded his Board of Supervisors seat back (to no avail), filed a legal claim against the city for his firing, and has now settled on the strategy of a blunt-talking race for the mayor's office instead (Care not Cash hasn't helped anyone, crime is up, middle class families can't afford to live here anymore, Newsom's been a disaster, he can't be trusted, we need real leadership, etc).

Is there going to be a squeeze play on Newsom from the right and the left in this race? That might be really interesting to watch -- if, of course, the left could get its act together enough to actually pick someone to start the squeezing. C'mon guys, Tony can't do it alone!

The Examiner's on Bobagate! They've now found out Ed Jew, through his father, rents a building to a pot club, at 1545 Ocean. Hope those cannabis users have water.

Look at all these properties the Jew family owns too! 13 in San Francisco, 1 in Burlingame, and 4 in Arizona. Arizona? Is he running for supervisor there too?

In other property-related news, it turns out Tapioca Ed has also evicted an African immigrant couple's hot dog business from one of his buildings, over a weird subleasing transaction with a man who claimed to be Ed Jew's cousin. According to the couple, Jew was very distracted with the District 4 election at the time all this was happening and promised them everything was fine, but then evicted them at Christmas, about a month after the election. "He's a supervisor," said the wife. "He should stand up for me." Well, ma'am, do you own a bubble tea shop?

Picture of Ed Jew's pot shop by Cindy Chew, from the Examiner.

Starting your weekend on Thursday always sounds good to us. SFist has just the ticket, literally. Why not check out the coolest bay area politician that never was-- seriously, the second sentence in the wikipedia entry on him is "He is sexy". We’re giving away 2 pairs of tickets to “In The Grip Of Official Treason” Tour: An Evening With Jello Biafra (spoken word). Tonight at Great American Music Hall (sorry, you’ve gotta be 21 and older). We’ll pick winners around 4 pm and let you know.

And the hits keep on coming! Now the Chron's reporting that Ed Jew's been told he has five (5) days to prove that he lives in San Francisco, through tax records or a driver's license or cable bills or utility bills or any other similar documentation. Fog City Journal has copies (.pdf) of the documents sent by the City Attorney's office if you want to see.

As you've probably all heard, either Ed Jew never showers or washes his dishes, or there's not really any water at the residency he has listed with the Board of Supervisors. If Ed Jew doesn't shower, he probably doesn't watch cable or get his garbage picked up either, huh? In response, Jew (or "Tapioca Ed," as commenter kwillets suggests we call him from here on out) first says his and his father's water privacy rights were invaded when the PUC told reporters the house hadn't used much water (to which the City responded that water records are public), and then asked for an extension since he's out of the country until June 4.

Tapioca Ed's lawyer says he encouraged Jew to leave the country, basically since the guy wouldn't shut up to the media, and that they told the FBI about the trip and the FBI didn't say he couldn't go. The tickets for the trip were purchased on May 1. We'll see if that guy ever comes back!

Picture of one of the Quicklys in question, from the Examiner.

Esther Hwang picked a bad day for a press conference -- normally, the media would be all over the former Willie Brown secretary turned cheesecake model turned San Francisco Law School student discussing the $1 million lawsuit she's filed against the SFPD for alleged brutality against her outside a North Beach bar -- but with everyone distracted by Ed Jew's flight from the law, Carole Migden's cancer-related bad driving, and in a city that now expects out of its mayoral girlfriends underage drinking, sordid affairs with best friends' wives, and/or misjudged blog commentary, Ms. Hwang's press conference seemed like a quaint trip in the San Francisco wayback machine to the last century.

Hwang claims that she was outside the North Beach bar Dolce last week, celebrating the end of her law school finals and waiting for her boyfriend when she saw some police officers. She said, in a flirty voice, "I guess you'll have to tackle me if I try to cross the street," at which point she says the cops, totally unprovoked, grabbed her by the hair, tackled her, and took her into custody. She claims she was targeted because of her relationship with Willie Brown and says contrary to what the cops say, she was not drunk. She'd only had one pear cider that night. The cop in question, it turns out, has a long record of citizen complaints.

SFist Jim picked up a 30 second snippet of the press conference you can listen to here -- it's worth hearing Esther detail what happened to her "pretty dress," pearl necklace, and fur coat. It's like that scene in Clueless when Cher gets mugged. "But this dress is an Alaia!!!!!"

After the jump (and updated!): More excellent picture by SFist Jim for your perusal. And there's some more spectacular pictures by Luke Thomas on Fog City Journal too.

Picture by SFist Jim. Yes, those pictures behind Hwang are swimsuit pictures of herself.

After poking some good-natured fun at State Senator Carole Migden for her driving mishaps last week, we now feel obliged to tell you guys that she's revealed that she was diagnosed with leukemia 10 years ago and thinks that her medication might have affected her driving that day.

Migden says she was diagnosed in 1997, was unable to find a bone marrow match, but successfully fought off the disease nonetheless, saying she lost her hair but not her will to live. She was proclaimed disease-free in February of this year by her doctors, but is still on chemotherapy drugs.

Migden also says she's going to get neurological testing to make sure everything is okay because she doesn't remember anything about what happened involving the accident last Friday.

Congratulations to Carole Migden for fighting off leukemia and we wish her good health moving forward.

Picture of Migden with Barack Obama and Barbara Boxer.

We cannot get away from the transportation theme around here at Team SFist this week! The latest travel-related news relates to bubble-tea connoisseur Supervisor Ed Jew: despite the pending FBI investigation into his finances, he's left the country for a pre-planned trip to China. (Thanks to the Usual Suspects for the tip!)

Aaron Peskin seems to have moved away from his original "let's see what happens and maybe it's all a big mistake" position, since he's now saying Jew has brought "dishonor" to the Board of Supes. In fact, Peskin was the one who tipped off city officials about the trip in the first place, saying that Jew was a "flight risk." Guess Jew's not going to be voting in favor of Peskin's MUNI proposals. That is, of course, if he ever returns.

A trip to China, huh? Does this have anything to do with the fact that Quickly and bubble tea come from breakaway province Taiwan???? Is it too Asian-American of us to suggest calling this whole thing Bobagate? (We're perfectly happy to stick with the name "Oh No, Ed Jew!" as well.)

Update: Ed's flight left SF around 1 a.m. this morning, and lands in Hong Kong probably in the next few hours. He's traveling with his family, a legislative aide, and his accountant. His accountant? How hard is it to count to $40,000?

We thought Ed Jew's lawyer told him to zip it! But no! Despite the stern mandate the cash-accepting, alleged-bubble-tea-shaking-down Supervisor received from his counsel, Ed Jew's still chatting up the Chron.

His latest defense? That whole thing where his house didn't have water? Jew's response: "Ask yourself this: When it comes down to government run operations, do they ever make mistakes?" It is no good when the elected official's excuse is that government screws up.

Jew's other excuse? Sometimes his father (who pays the bills on the Sunset house) forgets to do things. What does his father forget? Jew replied, "Things." You can just see Ed Jew's lawyer slapping his forehead in despair, can't you?

The rest of the situation isn't looking much better for Jew: not only is he now under investigation by the ethics commission, but an anonymous employee of the Quickly bubble tea store that paid Jew the $40,000 in the first place is contradicting Jew's story that the whole money exchange was payment for a consultant -- the employee says that Jew came to them and said they had permit problems and would need to pay money for them to go away. The owner of the rival bubble tea shop in the Sunset (Wonderful) had no comment. Has it really come to this? The Sunset is having a bubble tea turf war? No wonder no one takes our city seriously.

As Chris Daly noted to the Chron, in the politician's "hierarchy of no-nos," not accepting sacks of money is the ironclad rule number two. (The first, Daly clarified, is "no disappearing interns.") Daly's rule number three is, of course, always dress up to interrupt meetings.

Hey, remember last Friday when State Senator Carole Migden got in a fender bender in Fairfield? It was the same day that Ed Jew's office got raided, so you might have forgotten.

So the original story was that Migden was lost, and took her eyes briefly off the road to make a cell phone call and hit someone's bumper. Not great, but sure, it happens. Well, now KTVU is reporting that the CHP is doing an investigation, because "minutes" before the accident, they received numerous calls that a person in an SUV was driving "erratically and recklessly" and imploring them to do something before the driver killed someone.

To wit: the callers reported seeing someone doing 80 and weaving in between lanes, while simultaneously reading and talking on a cell phone, and cutting people off. The driver was also reported having clipped the center median of the highway.

Guess who it was? Well, as Migden herself is now reported to have yelled at the other driver on the scene, "I'm a senator!" Oh dear. That number again? 1-800-TELL-CHP*.

Ironic picture of Carole Migden at a ceremony with CHP Commissioner Michael Brown, introducing car safety legislation.

*technically, you should call 911 if you see an erratic driver; 1-800-TELL-CHP is for non-emergency car-related matters.

We considered calling this post "And then they came for Jew, and we said nothing," but decided that was in poor taste.

So what's been up with our favorite beleaguered conservative Sunset Supervisor? Well, as everyone knows by now, right as Ross Mirkarimi's Friday art party was starting, Ed Jew's City Hall office was raided by the FBI, based on charges that he'd accepted $40,000 in $100 bills from businessmen seeking to get permits from City Hall.

Supervisor Jew told the press that the businessmen came by, offered him the money, refused a receipt, and he went ahead and took it and put it in a safe, even though he thought the whole thing was weird. Jew also said thought it was a fight between two groups of merchants that he got in the middle of, and that he'd simply referred the businessmen to a political consultant. "I don't know if it violates the law," Jew said.

The next day, we learned that the feds had also searched Jew's Chinatown flower shop, his house in the Sunset, and a house in Burlingame where his family lives. Wait, why does a Supervisor for District 4 live in Burlingame? Neighbors report that no one's lived in Jew's stated SF residence since a burglary and shooting three years ago, but now they see Jew about once a month. Jew's spokesperson says Jew lives there, but that he simply doesn't get home until late at night. The spokesperson wouldn't answer questions about why Jew's wife and child live in Burlingame. (Update! Water service didn't start at the house until 2 months after he was supposed to be there for SF election residency requirements.)

Further complicating things, Jew is also now saying that he did accept the $40K on behalf of his consultant friend, and told the consultant to donate $20K of it to fix up a park on 28th and Lawton. However, Parks and Rec have no record of any such transaction. The consultant is not answering reporters' inquiries about anything.

After all this, Jew has hired a criminal defense lawyer, who's told him to zip it.

Picture off Flickr by dolanh.

According to a press release put out on PR Newswire by her attorney, Dr. Arlene Ackerman has filed suit against the San Francisco Unified School District in San Francisco Superior Court.

She is seeking damages in excess of $172,000 for nonpayment of salary and other compensation, saying that the district breached a written agreement. Dr. Ackerman resigned from her post in June 2006--a resignation forced by the board of education in accordance with a so-called "compatibility clause."

We don't even know where to start with this news item -- we had to read the article like three times before we figured it out. Who has a pro-war protest in San Francisco???

The conservative group Move America Forward showed up at the SF Federal Building to protest Nancy Pelosi's plan to leave Iraq -- with a bunch of chimpanzees they'd rented from a Kern County animal studio. The chimps were supposed to be the "Surrender Monkeys," see?? The chimp is wearing a French beret and waving a white flag -- see?? The protestors ultimately got into the building to talk to Pelosi staffers, but had to leave the chimps outside.

Of course, since we live in San Francisco, the only message we take away from this: adorable monkeys think we need to get out of Iraq.

Picture from the Chron, by Michael Macor. The video clip that CBS 5 has up is well worth watching too -- though we would have personally liked to see a little more of the chimps and a little less of the pro-war people. Here's the rest of the Chron's pictures, and here's a Move America Forward YouTube clip.

Postscript: The Chron has a report up about it too now: apparently Move America Forward was chased out of town by SF Animal Control, because they didn't have permits for the chimps.

Chris Daly's super excited about his Progressive Convention on Saturday June 2, right? He's telling everyone! He even crashed Gavin Newsom's party last Saturday to tell him! June 2! June 2! They're going to nominate a progressive mayoral candidate on June 2!

Soooooo.... guess who else is having a mayoral event that very same day????

In order to qualify Mayor Gavin Newsom for the ballot this coming November, we need your help. We are going to start collecting signatures from San Franciscans on June 2nd. We want to show the City's widespread support of our Mayor and his vision for San Francisco.

We're hosting a volunteer mobilization on June 2nd at 12:30 at our campaign headquarters. Please come join the Mayor and other enthusiastic campaign volunteers as we hit the streets to let people know what this campaign is all about.

Oh no! Scheduling another party on the very same day as your rival's! That is COLD. They're going to have a rally for Newsom on Chris Daly's birthday next!

After the jump: we actually talked to both Chris Daly and the Newsom campaign about this -- plus, all your info for your jam-packed June 2nd schedule.

As far as we know, our mom is NOT behind this movement. But we're totally flattered that blogswarm at Calitics thinks we should run for mayor. We're even more flattered that our CrackBerry Chronicles are "dreaded" by someone other than Gavin Newsom. HIGHlarious!

Sadly, we will have to say "nay" to running for Mayor of San Francisco, but "yay" to resuming our ho-hum life of personal assistant by day, blogger by night, and shameless attention whore all day, every day. Plus, a show-down with Big G would be a War of the Hair, and he spends more money on products than we do.

Since everybody else seems to be doing it, here are our draft picks for SF Mayor: Jackson West, Luke Thomas, and G.W. Schultz at the Bay Guardian.

Special thanks to Bob at Calitics for the shout-out. If you put our name on a fanny pack, we'll be your BFF!

Photo from Calitics

Image replaced to avoid hotlinking. Photo of Tina Turner's cat courtesy of the Institute for Private Dancing Studies.

According to a KCBS report, ballots in next November's election may need to be hand counted. Evidently, under new Federal guidelines, our current machines are no good.

The article cites Elections Director John Arntz as saying that this will cause long delays in getting results and could cost an extra million bucks.

Wow. We paid a ton of cash for those machines, now we can't use them. And are any of the ranked-choice voting positions up in the next election? We'd hate to see those have to be hand-counted. The opportunity for errors is far more likely with that extra complication.

Look at that fresh new picture of your 2007 San Francisco Board of Supervisors! Chris Daly even showed up this time! So what's the gang up to these days? (Besides Chris Daly; he's old news.) Here's an update:

Bottom row, left to right:

Michela Alioto-Pier: Giving medical marijuana stores more time to apply for permits.

Bevan Dufty: Pleading with Chris Daly in vain about moving wi-fi forward.

BoS Pres. Aaron Peskin: Making it more like getting a parking ticket if you're caught boarding a MUNI bus or train without paying.

Ed Jew: Getting his section of the street paved before everyone else's; voting with Chris Daly in a strange alliance against the Hunters Point Redevelopment plan.

Tom Ammiano: Running for the State Assembly. Holding a rally about the bad conditions in local homeless shelters.

After the jump: the team in the back!

The Governor's annual May budget revision was rolled out yesterday. The document still shows a net operating deficit of $1.4 billion, but represents this as "major progress as compared to the $4.4 billion that was anticipated for 2007-08 at the time the Governor signed the 2006 Budget Act." The revised budget includes plans for early debt payments as well as to avoid tax hikes, and shows Arnold's intent to restrain spending growth and maintain adequate reserves, among other things.

Democrats are concerned, though, that it's doing so at the expense cuts social services and public transit -- which could have a direct affect on BART and other orgs.

For all those who say Arnie isn't really a Republican, we'd say that this budget shows that, in fact, he is, at least when it comes to spending.

There are tough choices to make -- and the concerned Dems have the advantage of controlling the legislature. We do hear a lot of gloom and doom about markets doing this or that, particularly regarding real estate, which makes the guv.'s job all the more difficult. If new housing starts slide, for instance, that's less money we can count on in the state's coffers.

The Sac Bee reports Michael Genest, the governor's finance director, as saying that the housing market is "pulling our numbers down slightly," and that the downturn "is just getting a little deeper and lasting a little longer than we thought."

UC and Cal State students are concerned that the budget still shows a fee hike of 7%-10%.

In any case, what all of this ultimately means on a macro level is for the pundits and wonks to figure out. All we know is that the legislature is supposed to approve a budget by June 15, and Mr. Schwarzenegger is supposed to sign a budget into law by June 30. You can check out a little Web cast video here.

Jerry Brown, our recenty elected State Attorney General and St. Ignatius College Prep alum, isn't afraid to take the Bush Administration to task for its weak stand on fuel efficency for SUVs, minivans and pickups. He's seeking more than the paltry one-mile-ish increase, which went to 23.5 miles per gallon from the current 22.2 miles by 2010. He called the change "absurd." Damn right. He posits that a standard of 10 miles-15 miles better would suit us far better.

At 10 a.m. today, the former state governor/presidential candidate/Mayor of Oakland is expected make his case in front of the oft-overturned 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Brown cites climate issues and reducing dependence on foreign oil as his main motivations for doing so. Sort of funny: the former is perhaps a typical "progressive" motivation and the latter is perhaps a typical "conservative" motivation. We see you working that cross-aisle appeal there, Jerry.

Are auto industry costs going to trump all the good reasons to do this? We'll see what the 9th Circuit says.

Okay, we'll admit it. San Francisco local politics as of late has been, shall we say, BORING. Boring boring boring boring. No shouting matches, no chicken suits, no revelations from either underage drinkers or hyphenated-named wives of best friends -- it's been slim pickings. So how excited are we to hear that the simmering cauldron of rage that is the Gavin Newsom-Chris Daly rivalry is heating up!!!! YES!!!!!!

So, according to Left in SF: before Fake Question Time 5 yesterday (which seems to have been boycotted by pretty much every news organization in town), there was a rally at City Hall (.pdf) for children and families.

And how exciting! The mayor was there! Gavin Newsom, on his home turf, gives a rallying cry of a speech: why do families leave San Francisco, something's got to be done, let's build 3100 more units of affordable housing. Applause! Gavin leaves the stage so the next speaker can take the stage.

Next speaker, please! .....Uh oh! Did they say Chris...... DALY????

Chris Daly takes the mike. He thanks the organizers of the rally. And then he says, "I want you to know that Gavin Newsom is a hypocrite." AAAAAAAAAAAAH!! They look in the audience. Gavin has turned his back on the speaker. AAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!

After the jump: why's Newsom a hypocrite? And Newsom's return salvo, scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. Yay! SF politics is fun again!

Picture of Gavin supporter from the Newsom reelection website.

Assembly Bill 684 seeks to legalize the growing of hemp for industrial uses -- rope, cloth, oil, all that good stuff. It's not for smoking, okay? Okay?! In fact, the bill, which passed the assembly and heads for the state senate shortly, defines "industrial hemp" as "an agricultural field crop limited to the non-psychoactive varieties of the of the plant Cannabis sativa L."

Our own Assemblyman Mark Leno is one of the authors of the bill; he, of course, is looking forward to the day when San Francisco's hydroponic community unleashes non-psychoactive hemp as a major cash crop for export.

Will it pass the senate? Well, a similar bill from last year did, and the Guvernator vetoed it. Will he do so again if it crosses his desk? We'll see. It's not an election year anymore, after all, so chances are better. His excuse last time had to do with federal laws superceding state or local ones -- and in a way, we see his point; after all, look at the whole Ed Rosenthal situation. The last thing we'd want is for some drug czar to get overzealous. But if Arnold takes a stand, and the many advocacy interest supporting groups the back him up, there could be a rich future for hemp growth throughout the state.

San Franciscans awoke last Saturday morning to discover a strange robot had taken control of the horizontal and the vertical on their answering machines: a recorded voice begging victims to support Assembly Bill 266. "Press one to be connected to Assembly Member Ma's office, and ask her to support AB266," the telemarketer offered. Who's responsible for bugging us with politics on our day off? No idea. The author of the recording (at least, the bulk that made it onto our voicemail) didn't identify itself. We emailed Fiona Ma's office to ask if they knew what's up, but they didn't write back.

Was this a legitimate attempt to gather support for AB266? Was it a backhanded effort to make people resent the bill, since normal folks automatically hate telephone sales pitches? Was someone just trying to gum up the phones in Fiona Ma's office? It's a mystery. We're not even sure what AB266 is, other than that it does something to tribal compacts, which probably means gambling. What're your theories?

SFist reader Ciaran reported a mysterious government-looking motorcade winding its way through North Beach and the Presidio on Monday. Who was in town? Why, the Prime Minister of Singapore, of course. That was the federal secret service you saw escorting Lee Hsien Loong and company to destinations unknown.

What were they doing in town? Our sources won't say. (But how many high-profile destinations can you think of in that neck of the woods? Speculate wildly in the comments!)

We also don't know who was traveling with him; but we can only assume his entourage includes a few live merlions.

Unrelated limo picture from hsivonen's Flickr stream. Thanks to Freelang for "Hello" in Malay, as well as an excellent photo of a little girl hollering.

Can Gavin raise enough money to compete in the upcoming Mayoral election? His campaign declares "si, se puede!" then clarifies, "yes, we can." If you've got no plans tonight and a couple hundred dollars burning a hole in your pocket, trot on over to Tres Agaves at 130 Townsend St. to join the man himself for a Campaign Fiesta Fundraiser.

Suggested donation: five hundred dollars. Or, if you're feeling particularly moved by the theme, 5,437 pesos. Ha ha ha! Seriously, though, dollars only.

Nancy Pelosi is sticking up for her constituents, amidst all the recent news that San Francisco has the highest gas prices in the nation.

She says that she's trying to make July 4th “Energy Independence Day" through a package of proposals.

As a pedestrian/public transportation user, we don't personally feel a direct impact from these high prices, but we'd be fooling ourselves to think that there isn't a trickle-down impact -- on any goods trucked here, on any driving-based services, and more. It's often said that San Franciscans pay a premium to live in this wonderful city, and that sentiment is surely right -- but enough's enough, and prices should not be high gratuitously. Time to figure out why gas prices are so expensive nationwide and even more out of line here. Especially since we keep seeing stories of record profits from the oil producers.

"We, the people of District One," the manifesto modestly announces, "demand the recall of Supervisor Jake McGoldrick." Except it's only signed by 24 people. We don't have the census in front of us, but we've got a sneaky suspicion that D1's "the people" number a bit higher than those two-dozen. You could argue that they speak for the majority of D1's population, but wait -- wasn't it the majority that put Jake put into office? Twice?

And so goes the gigantic garbage-disposal of time and money that is the vanity-recall of Supervisor Jake. He's got about a year left in office, so why would you recall him now? Because you're bored, probably; or maybe because you're crazy. There's no chance this recall is going to work -- not even the teeniest, tiniest, snowballiest-in-hell chance -- and everyone knows it. So in the end, what'll be accomplished? A lot of time, money, and effort expended for no real outcome other than the smug righteousness of those pushing it forward, proving that San Francisco conservatives are not so different from San Francisco liberals.

Hilariously, the recall's backers may actually be undoing themselves a little bit. They're opposed to rapid transit on Geary, a measure that'll bring in 25% more pedestrians; but the recall needs 3,000 signatures to move forward. There's not much chance of collecting signatures on Geary if all the people are boxed up in cars, is there?

Jill Tucker's series on Junior ROTC (Reserve Officers Training Corp) and Nanette Asimov's features on California's special education program have won top honors in the 2006 John Swett Award for Media Excellence, which is the California Teachers Association's highest honor for media professionals.

Tucker's stories (here are some of the stories we found) followed the Board of Education's vote to do away with the JROTC, outlined their reasoning (encapsulated in one teacher's quote that, "We need to teach a curriculum of peace"), spotlighted some of the affected students, and finally, in the end, got Mayor Gavin's less-than-thrilled reaction to the successful vote, which will phase the program out over two years.

A pretty good sampling of Asimov's stories can be found here.

Other reporters were cited as well -- congratulations to the Chronicle for placing so well in the competitive metro (100,000+ daily circulation) division. Kudos!

When we complained about Frontier Airlines LAX-SFo flights going away, our helpful commenters had a short discussion on high-speed railways and what a great thing they'd be. How timely, then, that the CoCo times is reporting the latest on that possibility.

And, darn it, it ain't promising.

The article reports that in his 2007 budget, Guv. Schwarzenegger has proposed reduced funding for the California High-Speed Rail Authority, as well indefinite postponement of a nearly $10 billion rail bond issue that we'd have voted on in 2008. However, Schwarzenegger's camp says the governor wants to make sure enough private financing for a high-speed rail is in place before asking the taxpayers to contribute. Which seems to make some sense -- it's still fishy that the Governator is being so quiet about it, though.

The attempt to stifle the high-speed rail faces some opposition from our Assemblywoman, Fiona Ma, and her informal "high-speed rail caucus."

Do you guys think it's true that Gavin Newsom refused to do anything with Conan O'Brien when Conan was in town last week because his feelings were hurt by Conan's jokes about him? If so, that is so lame! (Also, you can just scratch SFist off the Gavin Newsom party invite list right now.)

So the official story is that Mayor Newsom didn't show up for NBC's Conan celebration day last Wednesday because Newsom was "accidentally overbooked" and was doing an interview on SportsCenter about Barry Bonds instead. Oh, come on. Who cares what Newsom has to say about Barry Bonds. Do they call Michael Bloomberg for a comment on Wang Chien-Ming's hamstring? Was Gavin just calling up like every single TV show that tapes on Wednesday afternoons to overbook himself? "Ladies! I'll totally host The View!" (Though Elisabeth Hasselbeck does kind of seem like his type, doesn't she?)

Anyhow, so thoughtful readers were kind enough to send to us all the Gavin Newsom jokes Conan told, which are after the jump. Every day is Conan O'Brien Day at SFist!

We've been dying for a chance to use this picture from Gavin Newsom's reelection Flickr site. Feel free to Photoshop that marquee and send it back to us if you're so inclined!

From the Daily Show to the Googleplex -- Republican presidential hopeful Walnuts John McCain, struggling in the polls and in fundraising, gamely stopped by Mountain View yesterday afternoon for an hourlong forum with Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Google employees.

The questions were respectful but tough from the fairly-liberal crowd, touching on McCain's flip-flopping reembrace of religious fundamentalists after calling them "agents of intolerance" in 2000, his support of the Iraq war, the firing of gay translators under don't ask don't tell, and Darfur. They also asked McCain about his college GPA (to which McCain responded that he didn't remember but that he did graduate fifth from the bottom of his class at the Naval Academy), and Schmidt got some good nerd-snorts with his opening question, "How do you determine good ways of sorting 1 million 32-bit integers in two megabytes of RAM?"

Google's uploaded his talk here (1 hour long), if you want to hear all the geeky jokes about megabytes for yourself, and confirm that in fact, no, McCain did not sing "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" again.

McCain is the second presidential candidate to visit Google, after Hillary Clinton's trip in February (which we totally missed!).

Picture by veen off flickr.

You've undoubted heard by now of the controversy where AG AG (That's Attorney General Alberto Gonzales) fired a bunch of people for apparently less than above-board reasons.

Well, maybe he had a good excuse for forcing out Kevin Ryan, former local U.S. Attorney. An article in the Washington Post cites the tesitmony that David Margolis, a Justice Department official, gave to congressional investigators. His testimony indicated that his opinion circa 2004 or 2005 was that Kevin Ryan was "having trouble managing [his office]." Furthermore, according to the article, Margolis said that Ryan wasn't on the initial "to be fired" list--and that Margolis indicated surprise on learning that.

Ryan's a local -- a St. Ignatius grad, even. Was Ryan actually a sub-par employee? Who knows -- his announcment of departure lists some seemingly concrete accomplishments. ePlubaris has a slightly more balanced view. But, still -- was he fired with merit -- or did some Washington fatcats or political appointees have it in for him?

More of the story keeps coming out in dribs and drabs, and most will be AGAG-centric--so you may have to look closely to see if any more San Francisco-centric news pops up amidst this controversy (but, hey, that's why we're here).

Oh, what's become of our good old-fashioned hard-hearted conservative Republicans? Performance art?!?! What's next, long hair? Berets? Drapes and doilies? Irish cuisine?

The Davis College Republicans are sponsoring some sort of symbolic art-game today (Tuesday) at 12:30 out on the quad, wherever the hell that is. They're calling it "Illegal Immigration Capture the Flag," and here's the ingenious twist that'll earn 'em an A in their semiotics seminar: "Illegal Immigrants team will vastly outnumber the INS team, and every 10 minutes the Illegals caught will be granted amnesty and set free."

Overlook the imperfections of the metaphor (it's not like INS races across the border to claim Mexican flags), and it's actually kind of a funny joke, in the "tell it privately amongst close friends who'll know you're just kidding around" sort of way. It is also astronomically lame that they are making such a big show of it, in an Adam Felberian "hey look at me I'm pretending to laugh at a mildly amusing joke REALLY REALLY LOUD so everyone in earshot knows that I got it" sort of way.

All this would be a perfect opportunity for the Davis community to focus their rolling scornful gaze upon the DCRs. The only way they could possibly avoid looking like boring, embarrassing chumps is if some even MORE humorless organization decides to sniff and whine and moan. Oh, wait:

"Dear Chicana/o Latino/a Students," begins the email, "How ironic that they have chosen to play this 'game' during La Raza Cultural Days and on May 1st, the day of the worker and of the Immigrant. MEChA and many many other student organizations that feel this is a horrible mockery of everything that immigrants have done for this country, will be holding a peaceful counter- protest to show that what they think is 'funny' is totally unacceptable. On behalf of MEChA, I invite you to join us in solidarity. Gracias."

Oh dear. MEChA, we don't know who you are exactly, but let's assume for now that you are a group of collegiate Gundams. Please oh please oh please do not squander your giant robotic talons by frownishly protesting these Republican fruitcakes. No no -- instead, you must join in their game. Play along. Have a good time. And then, just when everyone's actually getting into the fun and enjoying the camaraderie: walk away, leaving behind a game that is so top-heavy that it cannot possibly survive the loss of your services.